In Brightest Day, In most Grim Night
by Jus Sum Dude
Summary: Warhammer 40K/DC Comics crossover. Posted here because, who the frak goes to the Warhammer 40K/DC Comics section? Once, he was Earth's greatest hero. Once he was her steadfast champion and strongest protector. But that was over 30,000 years ago. Now the Last Son of Krypton returns. And he's not alone.
1. Chapter 1

"I hear them. I hear them all. They need us. Now like never before.

I hear the screams of Chaos. Their perverse glee in aimless ruin echoes throughout the stars. They bring destruction without understanding what they destroy. I have seen the eight-pointed star plastered on the corpses of good men who died horrible deaths. It must end.

I hear the grunts and snarls of savage brutes. Orks, too busy pillaging and slaughtering to realize they have no reason to. Mere weapons without proper soldiers to wield them, they run loose like mad dogs. Like all rabid beasts, they must be put down.

I see the folly of the Eldar. They have suffered to the point of near extinction, yet they refuse to learn. Their arrogance plunged a galaxy into darkness and now they stumble blindly, pretending to see. They are broken and beaten, and now they lack the both the will and the strength to set things right. I think we must do it for them.

They are hardly any better from their cousins. Liars, thieves, pirates, and murderers, they think they are safe, indulging in the very decadence that brought their species to its knees, they think nothing can touch them. We will show them just how wrong they are.

I can smell their hunger from here. With teeth and pincers and acid and venom they chew their way through the stars. Disgusting, revolting things, they are gluttony given form, an infestation of hunger. They will be exterminated.

Cold, mechanical, and long-ago dead, they are mere shadows of a foolish choice made by weak-minded idiots. Millions of years later, and the galaxy must still suffer for their avarice. Though formidable, I know they can be stopped. But only by our hands.

They're not bad people. In fact, they're the closest thing to good in the entire galaxy. But that doesn't make them good. It doesn't make them any less hypocritical or their words of the 'Greater Good' any less empty. It doesn't make them any less tyrannical in their own right. They will not stand in our way.

Lastly, there are the humans. The Imperium of Man. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! They cower and shrivel behind monstrous walls of flesh and steel. They were once so much more. Once, they were curious and adventurous, brave and bold! Yes, they were no strangers to hate, but they were no strangers to love either. Now they scurry like rats, trapped in their own cities, living off the scraps that fall from the High Lords. The humans I knew would have been outraged at the state of their people, enraged at the fists of steel which bind their entire race, always around their throats.

Those humans were heroes. But there are no heroes in the 41st millennium.

How can there be? On some grand level, the people of this millennium have simply given up. They've already surrendered to the grim darkness of a fate they think they cannot escape. But I know differently. I know they can win. They just need to be shown how.

They just need to be shown the light."

There was quiet. No one dared to breathe. Finally the little blue man spoke.

"Thank you. Your report has confirmed what we already know."

He looked at his compatriots, who all nodded in agreement. He continued.

"This council of Guardians has decided to put the question to you all." At this he turned around and faced the assembled crowd. "Will you march to war?"

More silence.

Somehow, they all knew what was going to happen. They just wanted to see how.

A voice came, not from one of them, but from all of them. Was it a psychic? Perhaps the Guardians compelled them to do it. Or perhaps their rings were making their voices known.

_In Brightest Day,_

In another part of the universe, a Farseer stopped. He could sense it. Like the first breeze of an incoming typhoon, he could sense it.

_In Blackest Night,_

On some planet, where the sun never shined, and the voices of the damned took up more space than the oxygen in the atmosphere, the Inquisitor felt it. Like the last flares of a dying star, he felt it.

_No evil shall escape my sight._

Somewhere, within the Eye of Terror itself, where the whirling thunder and lightning of the Warp Storms towered over the planets themselves, they felt it. All of them felt it.

_Beware my power-_

On holy Terra itself, deep within the Imperial Palace, where sat the corpse of the God-Emperor, one would never have noticed it even if one had been standing right in front of the Golden Throne. But if you could have gotten really close, so close that you wouldn't have dared to breathe for fear of disintegrating what was left of the His body, you might have felt it: the tiniest intake of breath, a miniscule gasp. And you would've known. He'd felt it.

GREEN LANTERN'S LIGHT!

And all throughout Oa, it could be felt, like the rumbling of an Earthquake. Only it felt as if the very fabric of reality was shaking, as if the energies being released were too much for this dimension to handle.

Slowly, it calmed down, but the light would not fade, instead it settled into the rings. Thousands of them. All of their bearers were listening. They knew what this meant. The Corps was going to war.

The Guardians all looked at one Lantern in particular, the one who stood in the middle of the council chamber. He had been silent in all of this. He felt as if the words of his fellow Lanterns had all been meant for him, as if the will of the universe was giving him its vote of confidence. All of the Lanterns were focused on him as they hovered around the Guardians of the Universe. At last the same Guardian spoke up.

"Now we must ask you the same question. Are you ready?"

The Lantern looked at his superior with shining blue eyes, too intense to even be human. Not surprising really. He had never been human, although for centuries everyone looked to him as the paragon of his adopted homeworld. The Guardian continued.

"Will you lead the charge, Kal-El?"

Clark stood there for a moment, his ring glowing bright as his willpower only increased. Upon his chest was a symbol similar to the one he had worn all those millennia ago, only now instead of the familiar red letter, there was the symbol of the Green Lantern Corps. He thought of all that suffering, all those people forced to live under the heel of an undead tyrant. He thought of all their pain, all their anguish. Even here on Oa, he could still hear them.

"Yes."


	2. Chapter 2

Superman just couldn't help it. He tried to not do it, but it was just too tempting.

"Hmmmm-hm-hm-hm-hm-hmmm. Hmm, hmm, hmmmm…"

Long ago, during a festival the people of Metropolis had thrown in his honor, a man by the name of John Williams had been brought in with the Metropolis Symphony Orchestra to perform. Clark remembered hearing this original piece which had simply been titled, "Superman," and ever since, although he'd never admit to such an act of egoism, he'd always thought of it as his personal theme. While it may have lacked the grandiose power of Zimmer's version or even the soulful reflection of some of Christopher Drake's work, this particular piece would always be dear to him. It sung of such unbridled hope and optimism, a certain reckless idealism that, while old-fashioned, would always hold a special place in his heart. Funnily enough, he never would've gone to that event if Lois hadn't dragged him into it, telling him the people needed to know their hero appreciated all the effort they put into this celebration of Superman.

"With all due respect, Kal-El…"

Superman stopped humming for a second to turn towards the maroon skinned, black haired, humanoid Green Lantern he'd brought with him on this reconnaissance mission. As they talked they continued their flight path, easily pushing a hundred times the speed of light. The young Green Lantern of Sector 2814 normally would've found such speeds difficult to maintain without opening a wormhole, but the seasoned Honor Guard Lantern simply created a wake of glowing, green energy that his partner could ride as they flew through the endless void. Thus, like a leaf on the wind, the young Lantern Aiden Sur followed the Man of Steel.

"Could you please stop humming… sir?"

Normally the unwanted transmission of sound wouldn't have been a problem in space, but it seemed like the very same green energy pulse that Aiden was cruising on to keep up with the Man of Tomorrow was acting as a medium of transfer for the Earth tune that had stopped being enjoyable _several hours ago._

"Sorry kid," remarked Kent, chuckling a little before stopping the millennium-old melody so the two could ride through the Milky Way galaxy in peace. The silence was quite contemplative for Clark. His Telescopic Vision was just starting to make out the native star clusters of the galaxy that had raised him from birth. Like a veteran coming home from war, the sense of nostalgia was heart-wrenchingly strong. Straight ahead was the Gould Belt, a partial ring of stars almost 3,000 light years across, and within it he could see some familiar faces. Rigel, Acrux, Antares, Polaris, Vega, all these star systems passed through his head like the names of old classmates in a dusty high school yearbook. And if he really squinted he was just able to make out the eight planets and singular Sun of the good old Solar System.

"Sir, could I ask-"

"A question?" finished Superman. "I believe you were just about to. But you can try again, if you want."

"Ugh… okay…" While the silence had been a nice change of pace, it had allowed for some empty space in the young Lantern's bald head. This space was soon occupied by the thoughts of the intelligent young man, and as is often the case for those burdened with inquisitive minds, he soon found himself thinking certain questions that needed resolution. Clark didn't need Super Senses to see it coming on the young man's clean-shaven face and large, almost cartoonishly expressive green eyes.

"Why did you pick me for this mission?"

"You were the right man for the job."

Superman's response was simple, honest, and straightforward. Still, Aiden couldn't be sure if it was the _whole_ truth. When the Kryptonian had picked him as his protégé, a thousand possible motives sprung up in the mind of the Ungaran. Not the least of which was pedigree. Aiden's ancestry was a source of equal parts pride and shame. On the one hand, he could trace his lineage back to the legendary Green Lantern Abin Sur, a hero of such great renown it had been said that before his death they called him "The only Law west of the Andromeda Galaxy." He was the one whose ring had been passed down to the next great hero of the Corps, a human by the name of Hal Jordan. It was this very same ring which now sat on the finger of Aiden, silent with power as it propelled them through space. But Aiden's ancestry could also be traced to Abin Sur's son, the coward known as Amon Sur, whose jealousy had driven him to turn to the Yellow corruption of Fear. He had fought under the cowardly Yellow Light, and had been killed eons ago during the War with Sinestro. No one knew when he had found the time to sire a child, but sire he did, and now, generations later, here he was flying through the void with just a thin membrane of green energy separating him from the coldness of the vacuum, wondering if the alien by his side would've still chosen him if he'd had a different name.

Superman left the young Lantern to his thoughts. Even if he said nothing Kal could still hear the "thump-thump" of his heart as its tempo steadily increased. Aiden was a good kid, barely out of his adolescence, but there had been a lot of expectations from a lot of very powerful people when it was discovered that a third man of Aiden's surname would wield a Power Ring. Clark just wanted to make sure the kid would be alright. He had been under heavy scrutiny throughout his training on Oa and probably would be for the rest of his career, however long that lasted, and that kind of pressure could get to a person. More than a few Guardians were curious as to whether this latest Lantern would lean toward the example of Amon or Abin. But Superman wasn't in agreement with the Oans. Aiden wasn't his ancestors. Aiden would be something else entirely… or he'd be nothing at all.

"Hm-hm-hm. Hmm-hmm-hmmmmm. Hm-hmmmmmmm! Hm-hmmmmmmmmm-hm-hm…"

As the work of Hans Zimmer escaped Clark's lips, Aiden rolled his eyes and crafted two constructs of plugs with which to cram up his ears.

Clark pretended not to notice.


	3. Chapter 3

Her name was Jenny. His parents were farmers, hers were merchants who brought supplies from the spaceport to the nearby villages. Dad had called them crooks. It wasn't enough that the Navigator Houses felt the need to charge an arm and a leg for their services, now these folks were asking people to fork over their remaining limbs for a bushel of apples! Sometimes when their dads were busy drunkenly haggling over prices he would take Jenny to the creek where they'd go fishing, make mud pies, and catch space frogs until the sun went down. It wasn't until he was 18 Terran years old that he confessed his love for her. She had rejected him, nicely of course, but she still kept coming to the family farm to drop off supplies. Ultimately he couldn't take having to see her once every two weeks, so in the kind of rash decision only a young man with a broken heart could make, he signed up for the Imperial Guard. The sound of birds and the clean scent of spring was in the air, the clouds were sparse and the light of the rising sun bathed everything in golden light. He still remembered what it had been like the day he'd left A6-34S. Of course, neither he nor anyone else on the planet called it that. They just called it home.

.

.

.

Like all Necron assaults, the monsters had come from nowhere, attacked for no reason, and left absolutely nothing alive in their wake. By the time Sergeant Shane Treston's unit, the 366th infantry Regiment, had arrived, half of the planet had already been razed to the ground. All it took was one look from orbit for Shane to know that it was the half he'd called home.

Three hours later they were stranded on the planet's surface, defending a tiny as hell spaceport, barely big enough for two shuttles to take off at a time. The port was surrounded by plains, flat wheat fields as far as the eye could see. A thin, meter-high rockrete barrier circled the port and was the only cover the Guardsmen had, but sustained Gauss fire had broken down their crude defenses in over a dozen places. They barely had enough men left to form a platoon, they had no grenades left, no support fire, and none of the men had more than a full magazine left. Necron ships had forced the Imperial Navy to either abandon them or be destroyed. At Sergeant Treston's own insistence they had chosen the former.

"We're going to die here." Private Strauss wasn't being pessimistic. He was just saying what everyone else in the unit already knew. They all looked to their sergeant, some openly scared, some feigning fearlessness, but all terrified.

"Probably," replied Shane. No point in lying to these men. They had all known it to be true the second they had refused the order to evacuate. The spaceport was empty now. If they had left earlier there would've been well over a thousand civilians stranded on the surface, just waiting to be massacred. He tried to think of a prayer, something to calm his nerves and prepare his soul for what was to come, but he couldn't think of any. Weirdly, as he looked out on the plains, all he could think of was Jenny. It sounded romantic, but honestly he hadn't thought about her in over 15 years. He'd been with plenty of women, even a man once, though never for more than a night. Had she married? Did she have kids? Was she even still alive? He didn't know, though he could guess the answers. As he peered through the scope of his rifle at the grey and green metallic shapes lumbering closer and closer to their position, he thought about her.

"Don't fire until you can see the green of their eyes!" As he shouted the order the rest of the men lined up on the wall. They formed a circle, barrels resting on the rubble that had once been their cover. Was she a merchant now, like her father?

He held fire as the Necrons advanced, slow as a flood of molten steel. Rockrete exploded as green energy collided with their flimsy defenses. Still, the remnants of the 366th infantry held fast. She'd always wanted to be a doctor.

Treston was steady as dust flew up in his eye. He ignored the pain as he lined up his shot, centering his crosshairs on the metallic skull. Just a few more feet. He should really call her up some time.

He squeezed the trigger. Maybe after this.

All at once a very different green energy came down from the sky, solid and steady as a fortress wall. It slammed down on the earthy soil, kicking up a massive cloud of dirt upon impact. For a moment, both sides stopped firing. The men looked up, some surprised at the sudden interference, some fearful of this new enemy, and some, like Sergeant Shane Treston, looked to the sky with something just barely approaching hope.

The Necrons also seemed unsure of this new development. Before they could resume fire on the strange barrier, beams of bright green and burning red fell from above, laying waste to all opposition with inhuman speed and efficiency. The men saw this through the transparent wall of light and began to cheer enthusiastically. Surely, this must be some new weapon the Imperium had developed, surely the Imperium had not forgotten its loyal servants! The Sergeant wasn't so sure, although he cheered with the rest of them as they watched the green light solidify and become liquid. A tidal wave of pure energy picked up and scattered the Necron Warriors as easily as leafs before the autumn winds.

"Are you okay?"

Sergeant Treston turned towards the voice but saw nothing.

"Umm, up here."

Clark met the man's gaze, ignoring the men who steadied their rifles against him. There were hurried yells as the guardsmen held their aim at the floating man who had just saved them. Silent among them however was the man who Clark could only assume was their leader from the way they all looked to him. A quick scan from Kryptonian eyes confirmed that there were several wounded who needed to be tended to.

"You have injured. Need any help?"

Treston had no reason to trust this… being. But he owed it to his men to at least try. He nodded wordlessly.

Superman touched ground, quickly gathering up as many of the men as he could. Long ago he had mastered using the ring to staunch and bind wounds, reroute the flow of blood, accelerate cellular regeneration, even weave entire functioning organs from light. But the process was delicate and required much of his concentration. He knelt down by the first man, a corporal who had taken a shot from a Gauss Flayer to the thigh. His screams died down as the Lantern crafted microscopic constructs within the afferent nerves leading from the damaged limb to his brain. With his suffering contained Kal began to use heat vision to carefully cauterize the wound. The soldiers' eyes widened at the sight of laz-fire shooting from the alien's pupils. It would take a while for Clark to get to all of them.

"Superman!"

Kal and a number of Imperial Guardsmen all looked up at the source of the sudden sound. This newcomer, with his red skin and bald head, was obviously a Xeno, causing a number of them to draw their weapons again.

Aaron ignored them. "We have a problem."


	4. Chapter 4

"That… could be a problem."

Treston couldn't tell if the "Superman" was being facetious or ignorant. If the hologram the red Xeno had produced was accurate, there had to be at least 100,000 Necrons approaching their position, and that was probably just the vanguard. Who knew how many of the damn things there were on the planet? This seemed like a little more than a mere "problem".

"We need to get off-world. Do either of you have a ship?"

Clark weighed the options in his head. There were wounded here who couldn't be safely moved right now, not to mention all those androids to worry about. He could engage them while Aiden evacuated the men, but then they'd run into the same problem with the wounded, and Aiden had no training in medicinal ring application so he couldn't tend to them while he was gone. Then there was the last option… But no, Aiden was too young, too inexperienced. Could he really handle that many enemies?

While Superman ruminated on this Aiden at last noticed all the barrels currently aimed at him.

"Umm… What are you doing?"

Private Strauss and his compatriots' only response was to grip their rifles harder. Ever since basic they'd been told the same thing about Xenos and their hateful, abnormal, heretical ways. Now that there was one right before his very eyes he couldn't just stand there and do nothing!

Most of the other men weren't entirely sure what to do. These two had just saved them, but on the other hand they also seemed to be incredibly powerful. Maybe Strauss had the right idea. Now might be the only chance they'd have to destroy this potential threat.

Aiden gave them a look that was part questioning, part annoyed, and a small part insulted. Sur was wearing the most powerful weapon in the universe on his finger. What did they honestly think a glorified flashlight would do? Green Light began to pour out of his ring, and all of the soldiers' eyes widened. Out of sheer terror Strauss's finger slipped and his rifle fired. The beam of red light dissipated on Aiden's protective aura like a droplet of rain on the side of a neutron star.

Even Superman was a little worried by now. But he never let that worry show, even as he placed a gentle hand on the Sergeant's shoulder, who was about to throw himself between those two.

Aiden's power surged even greater. This man had just tried to kill him! Sure, he might as well have been trying to kill a planet with a rusty spoon, but still, how dare he! For a moment, Aiden considered all the things he could do to him. He could disassemble his weapon with a thought, craft a construct of a catapult and lob him into orbit, or perhaps create a hand construct and instruct it to follow him around so it could slap him across the face every day until the day he died.

Then Aiden caught the look in his eye. This private was terrified out of his mind, gripping his effectively useless weapon so tightly his knuckles were white. Still, the man stood his ground. Against absolutely impossible odds, he still stood there, rigidly refusing to back down despite how obviously outmatched he was. A feeling of admiration came to Aiden, along with an absolutely crazy idea. The young Lantern took a deep breath, firmly grasped his ring with one hand, and pulled it off in one, smooth motion.

As the green uniform dissipated from Aiden's form, everyone looked at the blood-toned Xeno in shock. Even Superman raised an eyebrow, though it was as much from concern as it was from surprise. Without his ring, Aiden had nothing to protect him with, and at point-blank range Kal couldn't block the las-fire without putting the other people here in danger.

But the most surprised of them all was Private Strauss. All of a sudden he had no idea what to do. He was supposed to shoot the Xeno. But this Xeno was choosing to spare him! No. Not just spare. He was... trusting him. Trusting him not to shoot, even though he didn't know him.

Well... that would be his mistake! Years of doctrine and training fought to reassert itself. Sweating now, Strauss lined up his shot. For a moment Superman's eyes glowed subtly red. A focused blast of heat vision might melt the trigger mechanism, but the sudden injection of thermal energy also might cause the battery to overload and kill the private! The only way they were both getting out of this alive would be to trust Aiden.

Aiden honestly had no idea what to do. He could die, right here, right now. He held his ring loosely in his left hand. Maybe he could quickly slip it on before the shot came. But no, the sudden movement might make the man fire. Aiden took one more deep breath, possibly his last. All he could do was trust, trust in the man with a gun pointed at his face. He looked him in the eye, not even blinking, not even breathing.

Strauss couldn't breathe. Everyone's eyes were on him. A droplet of sweat dripped down and he blinked as it stung his eye. He swallowed his spit, only to find there was no spit left to swallow. He looked the other man in the eye. He didn't blink.

Slowly, almost like it was being dragged down by some irresistible force, Private Strauss lowered his weapon and everyone, Guardsman and Lantern, released a breath they hadn't realized they'd been holding.

Clark smiled. He was ready.

"Aiden. I need you to do something."


	5. Chapter 5

100,000 Necrons marched on a once fertile world. 100,000 pairs of metal feet crushed everything in their path. 100,000 Gauss rifles lay waste to everything that lay before them. 100,000 of these evil machines sought to eliminate all evidence that there had once been life on this planet.

One man, garbed in green energy, fell out of the sky to face them. He crashed onto the surface, kicking up a cloud of dust and a shockwave of pure willpower that vaporized the handful of unlucky Necrons he had landed right on top of.

"Ring, how many of those things did I kill when I landed?"

"Eight," answered the most powerful weapon in the universe.

"Alright then," remarked Aiden, willing into existence a gargantuan rotating barrel autocannon about three times bigger than his whole body, with a caliber roughly the size of his head.

"99,992 more to go."

.

.

.

As the robotic slaughter began, prying eyes observed the battle from several megaparsecs away.

"A display of overkill to make Kilowog proud."

A small, blue-skinned man in a red robe bearing the green symbol of the Green Lantern Corps frowned at his colleague's phrasing.

"Your crude diction is indicative of the Kyrptonian's influence on you, Ganthet."

The long-haired Oan gazed across the Council-Chamber of the Guardians, the glow of the energy-constructed building accentuating the many wrinkles on his face as he smiled light-heartedly.

"Likewise, your haste to offense is indicative of your own impatience, Appa Ali Apsa."

The rest of the Guardians sat by, either mildly amused or totally disinterested. They had all gathered for two reasons: to see how the first battle against the Milky Way's inhabitants would go and, more importantly, to observe Aiden Sur's first time in battle.

"I have to ask," interrupted Ganthet, earning an annoyed look from Appa towards the newly reinstated Guardian, "how did we let the situation get so out of hand?"

"I hate to 'burst your bubble,' to borrow a phrase from your favorite Lantern, but the universe did not pause itself in your absence, Ganthet." Appa seemed to spit out his words, like each was a spoiled fruit.

Ganthet remained as infuriatingly calm as ever. "Well then how about you enlighten me? What exactly happened in the time I spent away?"

Appa glanced at the live feed from Aiden's battle. Seeing the rookie form a construct of a giant hammer and begin bashing squads of Necron Immortals into the ground, Appa nodded with satisfaction and addressed Ganthet's question.

"20,000 years ago an alliance between the Star Conquerors and the remnants of the Sinestro Corps threatened the safety of over a thousand Sectors." In the center of the room a holographic image presented images from the War. Massive beasts, each with five tentacles and some large enough to dwarf the mightiest warships clashed with legions of Green Lanterns. Fighting alongside the gargantuan monstrosities was an army of beings clad in Yellow Energy, eerily similar to the Green Lanterns in appearance and abilities.

"At the onset of the War they attempted to conquer the Milky Way Galaxy. Superman, who had already been inducted into the core many millennia earlier, gathered all the Kryptonians he could and met them in battle." Next was an image of Superman and a handful of others like him engaging what must have been thousands of Star Conquerors and Yellow Lanterns combined. "Ultimately, the invasion was repulsed, but at a heavy price." An image of the battle's aftermath grieved Ganthet deeply, as he saw all of the Kryptonians, save for Kal-El, deceased, their corpses floating in space.

The Guardians watched as a grieving Superman clutched the remains of a blond woman bearing the famed mark of the House of El on her chest. "In order to prevent further tragedies, Superman left the Milky Way in order to better combat the threat. It has taken him and the Corps nearly twenty millennia, but with the threat finally defeated we can at last turn out attention towards more local affairs."

"Including dealing with this 'Imperium of Man'. What do we know of them?" asked Ganthet.

"They are a theocratic dictatorship which has seized power over vast swathes of the Milky Way Galaxy. Their seat of government is referred to as Terra in the Sol System, formerly known as Earth of the Solar System in the most widespread language of the era. They speak multiple dialects of a language known as Gothic. They are a race of aggressive, expansionist, militaristic, human supremacist, eugenic zealots who regularly engage in cult-like behavior including persecution of genetic minorities, religious warfare, and sacrifice of their own kind on a massive scale," answered Appa, the contempt he had for such a barbaric race carved on his ancient face.

"Are you certain these are humans?" questioned Ganthet. "I have known many humans over my lifetime, from Hal Jordan to Bruce Wayne, and they never seemed so..."

"Brutish?" answered Appa. "Well over 10,000 years ago an unusually gifted human rose to power." An image of a human garbed in golden armor adorned the Council Chamber. "Referring to himself only as 'The Emperor,' he seized control of Terra after a period of time known as the Age of Strife, a period during which large psychic phenomena known as 'Warp Storms' disrupted all forms of Warp-based FTL travel in the galaxy, effectively making interstellar trade and communication impossible. After such a chaotic time, this man created an army of genetically altered soldiers called 'Space Marines,' with which he tried to conquer the entire galaxy. Along the way he forcefully assimilated, annihilated, or downright exterminated countless innocent cultures and species, from the Interex to the Kinebrach. They call this period of military expansionism the 'Great Crusade.'"

At this, Ganthet raised an eyebrow. "A tad self-aggrandizing, yes?"

Appa almost snorted in reply. "So is everything else they do. Have you seen their ship designs? They're grotesquely ostentatious.

This campaign of genocide lasted for nearly two centuries. We estimate that before the crusade the Milky Way galaxy contained well over a thousand separate species of sentient life, in varying stages of development, ranging from Paleolithic tribes to interstellar empires. Now it contains less than a hundred."

Ganthet looked down with grief and sorrow. By the Source, what kind of monster could do such a thing?

"Luckily for the galaxy this 'Emperor' was killed during an attempted uprising by his own son."

Internally Ganthet laughed bitterly at the revelation. "Such is the way of tyrants."

"Indeed," agreed Appa, for once, with his idealistic friend. "Unfortunately he has left behind a legacy of brutality and bloodlust that is not so easily squashed. The remains of his Empire continue to live on, despite the best efforts of several competing powers, and the madmen who continue to run and administer this barbaric bureaucracy seem content to continue his policies of persecution, oppression, and ceaseless belligerence."

Ganthet breathed a deep sigh. He looked up at Appa with a fury to rival Atrocitus himself.

"Well then it's time we do something about that."

.

.

.

"954... 953... 952..."

The clear voice of his ring continued to inform Aiden of how many Necrons were left. He paused for a moment as one of the metal monstrosities managed to land a shot at point-blank range. Oddly, despite how devastating their weapons had been to the inhabitants of this world and their defenses, they seemed to do little damage to the protective aura of the Green Lantern.

"943... 942... 941..."

Aiden dodged another blast from a Necron flayer as two more tried to get into point blank range. He summoned a curved longsword to his hand and cut them down with a swift, upward slash, the light-forged weapon cutting through their metallic flesh as easily as it had through the air, as if the poor androids hadn't been there at all.

"807... 806... 805..."

A full dozen of the unthinking brutes surrounded and fired on him. He flew straight up, crafting a sphere of green energy to protect him. Green Gauss fire met Green Willpower, and the latter absorbed the former easily. The sphere began to spin, gathering speed at incredible speed, until the air began to collect into a massive twister that began to pick up dirt, stones, and eventually Necrons. Aiden stopped, and the horde became scattered for miles.

"565... 564... 563..."

These things weren't the smartest, but they were certainly pretty damn persistent. A full platoon fired down on him from the top of a ridge. Aiden crafted a massive, U-shaped magnet, which gathered them into a single mass, suspended in the air. Giant hands of green energy clapped upon them, turning them into an unidentifiable mass of sparking metal.

"323... 322... 321..."

The hands began to form the necrodermis into a giant sphere, and with a mighty roar Aiden threw them upon the rest of their comrades like a giant metallic bowling ball. The sphere, still magnetized, grew and grew as it picked up more Necron bodies. Soon it was as large as a Scout Titan.

"101... 100... 99..."

With a great heave, Aiden lifted the mass of Necrons into the air, crafting yet another gargantuan construct. A Y-shaped object, with a flexible band stretching between the upper prongs. Aiden fit the mass of metal into his constructed slingshot, pulled back with enough force to snap a continent, took aim, and fired.

"No hostiles detected."

Aiden looked up at the soaring mass, eyes squinting as the goliath sphere kept getting smaller and smaller. If his calculations were right they'd land somewhere between this planet's moon and its star. Either way, they wouldn't be coming back from that.

"Current Power Level: 43%"

Aiden grimaced. His Instructor back on Oa, a Bolovakian by the name of Brillolog, was always yelling at him for his tendency to be wasteful in Ring Energy. It was never enough for him to shoot his target, he always had to do it with a construct five times bigger than necessary. Aiden knew he should be more cautious, but he honestly couldn't help it. The ring worked using imagination. Sometimes his imagination just got the better of him.

"New hostile detected!"

Aiden started at his ring's sudden declaration, looking all over the place for this incoming bad guy. He instructed his ring to be more specific.

"500 meters directly below and closing... 400 meters... 300 meters..."

Aiden's eyes widened before he flung himself out of the way as a massive, metal pyramid exploded out of the ground. Barely a moment later, a power green blast shot out of its tip and knocked him out of the sky like a fly getting hit by a swatter.

Though Aiden Sur didn't know it, this was his first encounter with a Necron Monolith.

"Current Power Level: 33%"

Hearing that, Aiden indulged himself in a small declaration, a word that Kal-El occasionally used when he thought no one was listening. A word whose precise definition Aiden didn't know, but whose tone could be guessed from Aiden's observations.

"Shit..."


End file.
